Gail Martin - Dark Haven

"Not too bad."

"That depends. Are you alive or dead?"

"I'll have to let you know."

TWO DAYS LATER, Tris rode next to Soterius and Tarq as the Margolan army prepared to lay siege to the walled manor. Men with a heavy wheeled battering ram massed on the plains in front of the holding. The battering ram, beneath a shelter of wood and hammered tin, would survive anything but a direct hit. Down the line, Tris could see his other generals, Palinn, Senne and Rallan, readying their troops to attack. To rally his own troops and strike fear into the besieged, Tris ordered the war drums and pipers to play their loudest. The huge drums, large enough to require two men to hold them, boomed out a rapid beat as the pipers played a rousing tune.

"I don't like this. They're just waiting for us to move." Tris's cloak whipped around him as the winter winds sliced across the land. He looked out over the army, just a fraction of the troops Bricen once commanded. Thousands of men stood ready in ranks for the attack. Archers had their bows in hand to give cover to the men who would storm the walls. Pike-men stood behind the archers, ready should Curane's forces attack. Well behind the lines, the mages stood on an elevated platform where they had a view of the entire plain. Tris could feel their protections, just as he could sense the distant tinge of blood magic as Curane's mages readied for the defense.

"A siege is something like a dance," Tarq replied. "Scripted by necessity. We attack. They defend. Not much happens until we breech the walls. Then it gets ugly."

"I'm expecting Curane to have all kinds of nasty surprises ready for us," Soterius said, never taking his eyes off the front lines.

"I'll see you at battle's end. Goddess go with you," Tarq said, galloping toward his troops.

"Ready?"

"Do it."

A roar rose up from the soldiers as the first wave of men swept forward, shoulder to shoulder. Curane's walled holding was surrounded by a fetid moat. Its main gate was defended by a heavy portcullis backed by solid iron" doors. Even at a distance, Tris could see archers at the crenellations, waiting to fire. Heavily armored men pushed the battering ram toward the main gate. A hail of flaming arrows rose from the archers, only to be snuffed out and blown aside by a mighty gust of wind, a gift from the mages. With the wind at their backs, the soldiers moved the heavy war machines more quickly. On both flanks, trebuchets launched heavy stones and iron balls into the walls and over the crenellations. The trebuchets forced Curane's forces to split their attention, giving the troops at the gate cover. Tris could feel the hum of magic as some of the projectiles stopped as if hitting an invisible wall, or were flung back toward his troops, only to meet a magical barrier of their own. He counted the snap of the trebuchets, and waited for the impact. One out of three of the huge boulders hit its mark, slamming against the fortifications with a thunderous bang. A third of the boulders were repelled, crashing with a force that shook the ground beneath their feet, forcing soldiers to break ranks and flee. The rest were flung away harmlessly by one side or the other, sending the great stones to land where they did the least damage to men or masonry.

Our mages are well matched. But it's more than that. The magic isn't working right for either side. If it were, we'd he hitting the target more often, and they'd be pounding us harder. The Flow is weakening. What if it fails altogether?

Magic tingled in his mind, and Tns recognized the taint of blood power. His mages worked in shifts, attempting to maintain their protections as long as possible. Tris commanded a battalion of archers, adding his magic to their protection as they moved forward behind the siege machines. A fierce wind arose from nowhere, raising a blinding wall of snow. Tris stretched out with his mage sense. He heard the thud of the defender's trebuchets, and let instinct guide his magic to deflect a boulder that hit the ground to the side of his battalion. The wind died just as suddenly as it came.

Tris could feel the battle in the currents of magic around him, and he could also feel the Flow's dangerous fluctuations, surging and waning. Twice, his own power flared. As quickly as the magic rose, it fell to nothing.

The battering ram was nearly at the gates. Made from a huge tree trunk, the battering ram was reinforced with iron and had a heavy iron tip. It was suspended from an armored frame that allowed it to swing forward and back, adding momentum to its sizeable force. Unseen overhead, the currents of magic struggled against each other. Tris lent what power he could spare, keeping his attention focused on his archers as they pressed forward. A flaming arrow sizzled toward him, and Tris barely had time to snuff out its flame and cast it aside. It was impossible for either set of mages to keep a full defensive shield over such a large army, and Tris could tell by their success that Curane's mages were stretched just as thin.

A cry rose up from the soldiers as the battering ram reached its strike position. Tris felt the magic shift, as his mages sent their protection over the soldiers at the wall. From behind the crenellations, Curane's fighters poured down cauldrons of boiling water and oil. It flowed harmlessly over the protective tin covering of the battering ram. Soldiers scrambled out of the way, shielded from the worst of the attack by Tris's magic.

Now.

Tris heard the word in his mind, although he was certain it did not come from his own mages. As the battering ram pounded iron on iron against the heavy portcullis, Tris heard the scrape of metal and saw gates open along the base of the massive stone walls. At the same time, a wave of blood magic surged around them, and the stinking waters of the moat began to boil.

Ashtenerath poured from the gates at the base of the walls. Eyes wild with rage, swinging their war axes and heavy broadswords with the ferocity of madness, the ashtenerath surged forward.

"Go!"

The archers dropped back and two lines of fighters surged past them armed with war axes. In daylight, the vayash moru could not help repel the ashtenerath. But, warned by Tabok, Tris had expected the attack. The foot soldiers swung their axes with deadly accuracy, or hurled them through the air with solid aim. Quickly, the archers reloaded with flaming arrows. Tris lobbed fireball after fireball toward the ashteneratb, incinerating them as they charged.

"By the Whore'-what is that?" The moat was sloshing and splashing, sending its cold, foul water spraying. From the depths of the black waters, corpses began to lurch up on the banks. Eyeless, bloated bodies jerked forward, like marionettes with an unskilled master. The corpses moved slower than the ashtenerath, without the driving rage.

Soldiers scrambled to get out of their way, trapped between the corpses and the ashten-erath.

"Hold your ground!" Tris shouted, rallying his men. He stretched out along the Plains of Spirit. Not bodies with souls forced back into dead flesh. Just puppets, to terrify.

Already, the soldiers nearest the gate had gathered their wits and were striking down the lurching corpses. The smell carried on the cold winter air, rotted meat and filthy river sludge. The corpses, sodden from their watery resting place, fell apart with the force of a sword strike, collapsing in stinking heaps as the soldiers held their positions. Through it all, the steady thump of the battering ram shook the battlements.

Tris felt the magic rising, and threw all of his power to shield his men. Images formed in his mind, dimmed by his shielding but not completely pushed from view. He saw his army, decimated. Bodies littered the plain, food for the scavengers and carrion birds that plucked their sightless eyes and ate from their corpses. In the sending, he saw the survivors ridden down and murdered, some by fire, others by the sword, the rest twisting from nooses. The sending grew stronger, and Tris saw Curane's forces and the Trevath army sweep across Margolan to take Shekerishet by force. He saw soldiers storm the castle and search its rooms for Kiara, saw torchlight glint from the knife as